


Temperature Gauge

by Pretending2BeMe



Category: The Professionals
Genre: M/M, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 19:27:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3459047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pretending2BeMe/pseuds/Pretending2BeMe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why does Bodie wear so many layers?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Temperature Gauge

Bodie rolled over to lie on his back. He lay there in the dim of the night feeling the heat radiate from his partner and listening to the slow, deep breaths of Doyle in sleep.The shared heat soothed him and he reached a hand to gently stroke along Doyle’s spine. Coming back up, he rested his hand on Doyle’s shoulder blade. Splaying his fingers, he felt the warmth seep into his palm and down to his fingertips.

He tried to remember the last time he felt like this – the last time he felt _warm_. All he could remember though was always feeling cold. Not the kind of cold that related to the weather but a deeper kind of cold that sat inside him like a ball of lead.

Oh, it had started out as low temperature. The winters were long when he was little; Bodie thought back to the times he had woken to numb fingers and ice on the inside of the windows. He remembered nights spent scrunched on the sofa in a blanket willing the fire to stay alight and hoping that his Dad wouldn’t come home. But the hot coals always died and his dad always came back from the pub. His mum always screamed and Bodie always felt cold.

Bodie thought of Africa then. The hottest place on earth but it never touched him. Being around Krivas had always caused a chill. There was something behind that man’s eyes that Bodie did not want to see; but when he showed it, when he killed – murdered-

He’d felt like ice for weeks after, his blood ran with freezing shards and the ball of lead weighted his chest as if it would crush him. Bodie thought of the nights he had stood in the shadows, gun in hand, watching Krivas sleep; silently screaming for his arm to rise upwards, for his finger to squeeze the trigger, to end it all and shatter the ice. But Bodie didn’t do it – couldn’t do it. Killing for money was one thing but murder for free was quite another so he just stood and watched and waited for the thaw.

Coming back to England had been no better. It was then that Bodie had taken to wearing a ridiculous amount of clothes. Vests, T-Shirts, jumpers, all stuffed under his uniform; anything to stop the Belfast wind. Bodie smiled at the memory of the lads in his regiment permanently taking the mickey out of his layers. He recalled the ludicrous Pike-like scarf they had given him for his birthday. He’d never worn it though; he’d had enough of a target on his back without that making it worse. Besides, no amount of wool could take away the frost within.

Doyle shuffled slightly breaking Bodie’s thoughts.

_Ah, Ray._

Bodie remembered when they first met; Doyle in shirtsleeves leaning against the squad-room wall, Bodie layered to the hilt, striding over to shake his hand. That first touch had shocked him, it felt like someone striking a match on his skin. The scratch of phosphorous as palm gripped palm, the tiny spark as the flame ignited and travelled up his arm. Looking into Doyle’s soft green eyes for the first time had caused that spark to explode behind his ribs, shattering the heaviness inside him. Bodie hadn’t realised it at the time, but he knew it now, lying beside his lover; that was the exact moment when the winter had ended and the spring had begun.

Bodie turned onto his side and wrapped himself around his partner, pressing his chest against Doyle’s back. Breathing in the scent of him and revelling in his gentle heat, Bodie knew that with Ray by his side, he would never feel cold again.

The End

 

 

 


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